“Yeah, well don’t count your chickens before they pack. I ain’t gone yet.”
Jan picked up a suitcase and began throwing my stuff in it. “Oh, yes you are.”
Ain’t friends fab?
* * *
I turned the front door key, took a really deep breath and stepped into the foyer’s dead air. Although sun bled through the living room mini blinds, gloom pervaded the atmosphere. The only thing missing were black dust covers, bunting, and perhaps a dirge. No, something more was missing. I didn’t hear the high whine of my alarm’s warning signal.
Throwing open the closet door, I found the alarm turned off. Had I been so upset after RJ died that I had forgotten to set it when Jan and I left for her apartment? Or had the real estate people been here and neglected to reset the alarm? My heart skipped a beat. Had the house been sitting here for weeks, unprotected?
I checked out the living room, barely able to look at the sofa where RJ died. Fighting back tears, I walked from room to room. Everything was as I’d left it, only dustier. My wilting plants seem to glare at me.
Upstairs was fusty, so I opened all the windows and doors and went out on the hot tub deck for some fresh air. I half expected RJ to come bounding from behind the orange tree, up the stairs and into my arms.
I inspected the hot tub water, saw the filtration system had worked perfectly, then turned the controls to HEAT so Jan and I could have a soak after dinner. But before she arrived, I had stuff to do, so I channeled my energy away from grief, into action.
Mama says I have what she calls “bounce-ability,” and I put it in full gear. In no time I had arranged for storage space for those items I didn’t want to sell or give away when I returned from Texas, touched base with my lawyer, Allison, on the Seattle thing, bribed my gardener to return, had the alarm people change my code, and called my real estate agent to share it with her. All this activity enlivened me. Except for the odd sad moment when I ran across a squeaky toy or a can of dog food, I was getting back to being Hetta.
I’d worked myself into a fairly good mood by the time I got to the item on my TO DO, AND I MEAN IT list reminding me to call Jenks Jenkins and thank him for the flowers. After four rings I heard, “Hunhnm.”
“Uh, Jenks?”
“Yes.”
“This is Hetta Coffey. I called to thank you for the flowers. They were beautiful and really helped to cheer me up.”
“Oh, yeah. Good.” Silence.
“Did I wake you?” It was one o’clock in the afternoon.
“Kind of. I was in the middle of a nooner.”
What? “Oh, well, then,” I stammered, “sorry to disturb you. Bye.”
“No problem. Bye.”
I hung up and stared at the phone. A nooner? What kind of kook tells a woman he’s in bed with another? Miffed, I stomped upstairs, determined to throw off my chagrin with some power packing. But my anger died in a hurry, replaced by a tingle on the back of my neck. When I opened my closet door to get a suitcase, I saw my clothes, all of them, on the floor.
Backing away in surprise, I fell against the bed, and like I had when I was a little girl, jerked my feet up so the boogieman couldn’t grab them from underneath. While trying to catch my breath I reached for the phone and called Jan.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“My clothes. They’re all on the floor.”
“What do you want me to do? Come over and pick ‘em up?”
“No, Jan. I wanted to know if you knocked them down.”
“Hetta, I told you to lay off the wine. Now cut the crap and get packed so we can leave for Texas tomorrow.”
“You don’t understand. All of the clothes in my closet are on the floor. Like someone threw them there.”
“Oh, shit. Anything else?”
“Not that . . . my jewelry box! It’s not on the tansu chest. And the house alarm, it was off.”
“Hetta, call the cops. I’ll be there right after work. Before, if you need me. Call them right now and get out of the house until they arrive.”
I called 911, but didn’t leave. All I could think about was my grandmother’s cameo, the one piece of jewelry I treasured. I went back to the closet, rummaged through the pile of clothes with shaking hands and found my silk Victorian blouse. The cameo was pinned to the high collar. Cradling the brooch, I fought the urge to run and stiff-kneed it down the stairs. All nerves aflutter, I flung open the front door and melted onto the porch steps to await the OPD.
27
Detective Martinez surveyed the closet and breathed his now familiar rattling sigh. “You haven’t touched anything?”
“The clothes. I pulled out a blouse.” I held up the cameo. “I was looking for this.”
“And you can’t remember whether you turned on the alarm or not when you left last month?”
“I was distracted. Distraught actually, when I left. RJ had just died and I wanted to get away from here as fast as possible. I truly don’t remember about the alarm.”
“Sorry about your dog. I liked him, and I don’t like dogs much. You say you’ve been away about a month?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where were you?”
“Wallowing in self-pity at Jan’s apartment in San Francisco.”
Martinez allowed a small smile to spoil his dour visage. I wondered if he had ever heard of Metamucil. “I understand,” he said. “I’ve lost a pet or two in my day. You never quite get over it.”
I was surprised by the emotion in his voice. I guess I tend to think cops don’t have any. He sighed again and said, “Let’s go back downstairs. As soon as my guys get through dusting for prints, you can determine what, besides your jewelry box, is missing. Meanwhile, can you think of anything you have, or had, that someone, particularly your Mr. Tokyo, might want?”
“I think we can rule out my body, since he only comes when I’m not home,” I quipped.
“I think,” he said, “we can put that in the ‘good things’ column.”
“Thanks, Martha,” I said. Detective Dour didn’t get it. Who knew he didn’t watch Martha Stewart?
After the print guys finished up, Martinez and I went to work. Well, I went to work. He stood by while I methodically hung clothes and then began checking for missing items. Which was a problem. How do you know something’s missing when it’s not there? Was all my underwear accounted for? Martinez had actually asked. Had I left any money around? I couldn’t remember. Jewelry I always remember, but for the rest I booted up my trusty computer, which was thankfully in place, and downloaded a home insurance inventory.
Using the printout we backtracked through the entire house. All there. In fact, as far as we could determine, the jewelry box was the only thing stolen. That and any remaining affection I harbored for my formerly happy home.
“Detective Martinez, if someone is trying to scare me, they’re doing a right smart job of it. The padlock thing, those calls. And you know what? I thought I was going goofy before, but this time someone really rearranged my jewelry.”
Martinez wanted to know what I meant, and I told him that several weeks before it looked like someone had moved things in my jewelry box.
He didn’t say anything. The pensive look on his face led me to believe he was either ruminating over my problem or waiting for a gas bubble to pass. Whichever it was, he finally asked, “Was that jewelry thing before or after the lock was changed on your hot tub housing?”.
I called Jan. She thought, as I did, the two were close in time. I hung up and asked Martinez, “Do you think someone, namely that rat bastard Hudson Williams, broke in here before and looked through my stuff?”
“I wouldn’t rule the rat bastard out. His prints were on the padlock.” He made a note on his little notepad and was preparing to leave when the phone rang. It was Jan.
“Hetta, you know what?” she said, “I think Hudson changed the lock before RJ hijacked the mail truck. Think about it. How else could RJ get out? The son of a bitch made friends with RJ, let
him out, then came and went at will.”
Now there was a thrilling thought.
“But Jan, how about the alarm?” She didn’t have an answer, but I relayed her idea to Martinez who told me alarms were play toys in the hands of a professional. Professional? I guess Hudson qualified, according to his Interpol rap sheet.
“And I don’t like the idea even a little bit, Ms. Coffey. I have a gut feeling that Williams, if that’s who we’re dealing with, has the determination and skill to get what he wants. I also think you might know what it is and are holding out on me. Not real smart on your part. Are you staying here tonight?”
“Yes, but Jan’s coming over. And if you recall, I have a couple of guns and....Oh, hell.” I went to the hall closet, threw it open, reached into a false compartment behind a shelf and smiled. “Still there. Both guns.”
“Good. I guess. According to an old police report I found, you’re a pretty good shot, too. Make sure any rat you vaporize around here in the future is already inside your house, if you know what I mean.”
Did I know what he meant? What was I, an idiot? He meant I might really be in danger. But if so, why? The key around my neck? It made me all the more determined to keep the damned thing. But again, why?
Martinez walked to the door and asked, “Are you still leaving tomorrow?”
“Yep, Jan and I are headed for God’s country.”
There was a lengthy pause then, “Does God know this yet?”
“Was that humor, Martinez?”
“I’ll let you know when I tell a joke. You two have a good trip. And Hetta, let’s not have any Thelma and Louise stuff out there, okay?”
Martinez left, and I pondered the situation. First off, I pondered why I hadn’t given the key, or at least knowledge of the key, to the detective.
I fixed myself a thè Slav with a lavish splash of Lacho slivovitz—Polish plum brandy—dumped into my Earl Grey. Then I had another, this one with a diminished percentage of Earl. The Polish moonshine was just the ticket to opening a gate into morbid introspection.
Was I holding on to the key in hopes of seeing Hudson again? Was I dangling a carrot? And if I did see him, would I shoot him or kiss him? Could it be that I, like those pitiful sob sisters with whom I had little sympathy or patience, longed for this man, one who had betrayed, jilted and robbed me, to declare his undying love, beg my forgiveness, rip off my bodice, loosen the one pin holding my tumult of heavy copper tresses from my swan-like neck, and ravage me with his throbbing, tumescent manhood?
Nah.
I oiled my guns.
28
I am the sovereign of shilly-shally. Always put off thinking today about something I can possibly forget by tomorrow, that’s my motto.
So the minute we left for Texas, Hudson, padlocks, missing jewelry boxes, and the like ceased to exist. I also realize that my proclivity for living in the present is probably a defense mechanism triggered by my perilous past. And although my future was probably equally crappy, there’s nothing like a road trip to make one hopeful.
“I’ve been thinking,” I said, three days later as we rolled along I-10 through West Texas.
“It’s about time. What were you thinking back in Laughlin when you started making fifty-dollar bets? You know you can’t play poker worth a damn.”
“Hey, Harrah’s gave me free drinks. It was the least I could do. Anyway, I won, didn’t I?”
“You broke even, which is a miracle. Might I remind you, Hetta, you are unemployed? Let’s skip Nevada on the way back. Neither I nor your bank account can take the strain.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking about. I might not come back.”
“What?”
“My life in California isn’t exactly coming up roses, so I was thinking I might look for a job in Texas. Then I’ll rent me a y’all haul and move back to my native state.”
“You hate Texas.”
“Not so. It’s my homeland. My roots. My people have been here for nine generations. We arrived when Spain still owned the territory, long before you norteamericanos invaded.”
“Snob. But you left, all the same.”
“Granted. I was tired of Houston, so when I got the job offer in California, I took it. Now that I think about it, Texas isn’t all so bad. Look at our friend, Mary. She’s never left and she’s happy.”
“True, but Mary’s in Austin, where living in a crappy old apartment she pays a fortune in rent for and driving a junker is still seen as groovy. We left groovy behind long ago. You can’t make good money in Austin unless you work for one of the new high-tech outfits. You hate working high-tech. All those techies and damn-comers have driven up the real estate prices and plumb rurnt Austin.”
“Maybe I’ll go back to Houston. Lord knows, real estate is cheap there.”
“Not where you want to live. Hetta, we aren’t twenty any more, and living dangerously on the cheap side of town isn’t for us. In the neighborhood where we used to live, this Beemer wouldn’t last two minutes. And besides, Houston has the same climate as Calcutta, India, or have you forgotten.”
“Air conditioning, my dear, air conditioning.”
“They need to air condition the whole damned state.”
“Oh, lighten up and smell the bluebonnets, Miz Jan. And look at them!” Purple blanketed both sides of the road as far as the eye could see. “Let’s blow this interminable interstate and cut through the Hill Country to Mom and Dad’s.”
We took the Iraan exit, named not for the Shah's former empire, but a couple named Ira and Ann Yates who cleverly traded a grocery store for a several acres of rock and cactus that began gushing oil. Now the hilltops also sprouted whirling wind machines.
The next three hours we traveled state roads while oohing and aahing at rolling hills awash in a sea of bluebonnets, black-eyed Susans, Indian paintbrush, and every other flower known to grow wild in the Lone Star State.
“You know, Jan, this is Lady Bird Johnson’s doing. Remember, years ago when she initiated that program to bring back the wildflowers? We kids spent Saturday mornings spreading seeds along the roadsides like this one. Look at the payoff. I’ve never seen the flowers like this. I’d forgotten how beautiful the Texas ‘sprang’ can be. For the life of me, I can’t remember why we left.”
“I followed you,” Jan said. “I came to visit and fell in love with San Francisco.”
“You fell in love with Ronny. So you dumped old whosit back Houston and moved in with Ron. Do you know what they call women like you, Jan?”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“Serial monogamists.”
“That’s me all right. Faithful, true, and blue, right up to the minute I leave ‘em. But at least I keep my men for a while, Hetta, which is more than I can say for you.”
“Sad, but true.”
We entered an area along the San Saba River where large cottonwoods lined both sides of the meandering water. “God, it’s so beautiful here. Why did I ever leave?”
“The heat?”
“Naw, I was never outside anyway.”
“Mosquitoes?”
“Ditto.”
“Money?”
“Maybe that was it.”
* * *
The Texas Hill Country was experiencing a spring that blindsides visiting Yankees who, entranced, buy a place, then damn near croak all summer. It was nothing short of glorious.
Catfish practically threw themselves onto Daddy’s Lake Buchanan dock, and then rolled themselves in cornmeal and dove into his propane fryer. We water-skied daily and went tubing down the Comal River. To make sure we kept up our cholesterol levels, we chowed down on chicken fried steak, fried okra, Blue Bell peach ice cream and washed cabrito down with gallons of ice cold Shiner Bock. Although an animal lover, I steadfastly refuse to equate the savory, mesquite grilled cabrito with those cute little goat kid darlings I bottle-fed at my grandmother’s ranch. One can get a lit-tle too hung up on such matters.
We visited with old friends an
d family, reveling in our home state with her best boot forward. Jan and I were entranced with the friendliness—after all Texas means friendly—of our home folk and the flower-blanketed, resplendence of the Hill Country in full regalia. It was hard to believe I’d been so all-fired eager to abandon such a paradise for old cold northern California. Made me wonder if I harbored some Yankee blood. Nah.
“Jan,” I said from my porch hammock one lazy afternoon following a hard morning of drinking beer and shooting the empties in the back pasture, “I’ve a hankerin’ to hit a honky-tonk. What do you say?”
Just Add Water (Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 1)) Page 15
